


Lollipop

by violettispaghetti



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 3 + 1 kisses, A little bit of angst, Because They Kiss, Better Than Canon, I Tried, Kisses, M/M, Reddie, Stephen King's IT References, and not a fix it, anyway, four kisses challenge, is it a thing?, no?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violettispaghetti/pseuds/violettispaghetti
Summary: “And before he could complete the word, Richie turned to him and kissed him on the lips. It also was no more than a peck, but Eddie got so paralysed within the moment that he could catch every detail: the mole close to his mouth, the bleached-out adhesive tape on the bows of his new-old glasses, his eyelashes through the thick lenses. He also heard Ben and Beverly gasping, somewhere in the Outer Space.”Derry 1958, Derry 1985, and four kisses with the consistency of a dream.





	1. March 20th, 1958

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy, folks? It's been a long time. 
> 
> This is my first time here with a work in English, which clearly isn't my native language. But I had to write this because I've come to a point in my life where the love for these characters is so absolute I need to invest it in something. So I decided to pour it into this fanfiction that I hope you'll enjoy as much as I loved writing it.  
Have a good read! 
> 
> (I forgot to point out that this is based on the book. Completely. A good or a very bad choice? Time will tell.)

  


The first time it happened was the first day of actual Spring. It had been raining for the last couple of weeks and the city was still recovering from the frost of late February.  
It is common knowledge that winter can lead humans to the edge of their minds, and that applies particularly well to Derry. So it was no wonder that, when the sun came up on that day of mid-March, every citizen - from Mayor Frick to Beverly Marsh's dad in Lower Main Street - got out of their houses as well, glancing at the sky as if there were some extraterrestrial entity. There was not. (yet)  
And as the sun kept rising their hearts grew lighter and lighter, glad to have survived another cold season in Maine.  
  
On that particularly blissful day, a kid named Eddie Kaspbrak was coming up Jackson Street.  
He was walking slowly and aimlessly, looking up with an absent-minded smile on his lips. He was quite a nice kid with quite a childish face, still free of the pubertal features some of his classmates were starting to show. The school day had ended early and Eddie was enjoying the prospect of having the afternoon all for himself, since his ma was at work till six o' clock. He had thought to ask Bill, his best friend, to hang out for a while – not to go to the Barrens, of course, they'd be crazy with all that mud and bugs and quicksand. They could have a ride through the city and enjoy the weather, though. But Bill had run away just after classes to attend his speech therapy thing. His stutter had got a lot worse since his brother had… died.  
Eddie dismissed the thought with a shiver. He wanted to believe he was still too shocked to think about George Denbrough's death, or about the fact that a six-year-old child could actually die, but it was not quite that; it was as if his mind refused to think about that, like there was some barrier, a voice saying…  
Eddie let out a muffled scream. Someone had crashed into him and for a dreadful moment he was sure it was Henry Bowers and his bullyboys ready to beat the hell out of him, but the blind terror vanished as soon as the other person opened his mouth.  
"Dear Gawd, isn't this Eddie Kaspbrak?!"  
"Aren't you wearing your glasses, Richie?", Eddie asked in return, half-smiling. Half because he could already feel the bruise spreading on his right arm the day next, but he was glad he had met someone to walk with.  
Richie Tozier was quite a type, it was true, but Eddie found him sort of amusing. Well, not always in the positive sense of the word, but he was definitely a good company. They had attended the same gym class during first grade, but they had never really talked because Eddie was too shy and Richie was a little bit too over the top. They had met halfway a few years later when they started hanging around with Bill, their mutual acquaintance. At that point, Richie had learned the basic rules for social acceptability, while Eddie had understood he wouldn't have died if someone new had approached him. So it turned out they formed a great team – Bill as well, of course, but that was implied. Bill had always been the best.  
"Oh sweet Lord, I think he just Got Off A Good One!", Richie laughed, but as soon as he realised there was no one else around to entertain, he put himself together. "Howdy, Eds?"  
Eddie shrugged. "Not so bad, I guess".  
He decided not to tell anything about the pet name. It was not like he hated that, but it was always a bit hard to tell when Richie was joking and when he was not, and that somehow made Eddie nervous. Actually, few things didn't make him nervous, but that was his nature.  
Eddie realised he was clutching his aspirator, not sure if it was to hit the person he thought was Bowers or to use it before he died. He put it back in his pocket, a little embarrassed, and Richie grinned kindly. He sometimes cracked a joke or two about his asthma, but not in a mean way like some of his classmates. Eddie was very glad elementary school was almost over.  
Now they were going side by side towards Bassey Park. In the first three seconds of their stroll, Eddie had thought Richie was a little bit quiet, but soon he had started to whistle a tune Eddie couldn't quite catch. Actually, his musical ear was rather slow compared to Richie's, who could guess a song from the very first note and knew a lot of different artists. It was truly a gift.  
Suddenly, Richie stopped in the middle of the street and smacked his lips. Eddie stopped as well, puzzled. "What's up?"  
"I'd like to eat some candy. How about that?"  
Eddie shook his head. "I've got no money. But I can go along with you if you like."  
Richie put on a grin and opened his right hand. He was holding a few crumpled banknotes. The amount was no more than two bucks and a half but that looked like a treasure to an eleven-year-old boy like him.  
"Don't you worry, kid. I've got your back."  
  
Ten minutes later they were sitting on the bench on the side of Costello Avenue Market with a paper sack full of licorice whips, a couple of root beer barrels and a lot of Atomic Fireballs, Richie's personal favorites. Eddie was licking a lollipop Richie had generously bought for him, not the Jolly Rancher type, but an actual lollipop, the one with the spiral and all. The storekeeper had shot a suspicious look at them, probably wondering why two kids like them were in a grocery shop and not at school. Eddie had hoped his ma would have never heard about that or else he would have been grounded for the rest of springtime: first of all, because he was not allowed to eat sweets before dinner, secondly because she didn't like Richie very much. While they were standing at the counter Eddie had started to regret the decision to wander around instead of coming straight away home, and in the end he couldn't help but use the aspirator.  
But now it was all right: he had his lollipop and Richie and him were enjoying the sunny afternoon.  
"How did you get all those money?", Eddie asked, genuinely curious.  
"Mmmh. M'wing deh law", Richie muttered.  
"What?"  
Richie swallowed the Fireballs. His lips were very red. "I had to mow three whole lawns for that money. Basically, it's all because of me if this shitty town has not become a jungle yet."  
"And you are not afraid to carry them with you? I mean," he added. "If Bowers had bumped into you…"  
Richie raised an eyebrow. "Bowers? That turd? He thinks he's the king of the world when in fact he's just the missing link between apes and humans."  
Eddie found that idea so amusing he nearly choked on a piece of candy. Richie was chuckling too, not knowing that he wouldn't have found it so funny the day after, while running away from the same he had just called a monkey (plus his gorillas) in the toy department of Freese's.  
"I just believe there are things worth the risk", Richie concluded solemnly.  
"Such as candy."  
For a moment Richie looked like he was caught off guard, then he pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded. "Such as candy, yes. How's the lollipop, by the way?", he reached out toward it.  
Eddie shifted the stick from right to left hand. He knew that moment would have come sooner or later, but he only had that lollipop while Richie had a whole bag of sweets all for himself. Also, he didn't really share food. Not because he was greedy, but because of germs. Although that was Richie…  
The door of the store burst open and a tune came out together with a big-boned middle-aged lady who walked away without even seeing them. The song hovered up in the air but Eddie did not pay attention to that; instead, he seized the moment and finished the lollipop with a big bite.  
"I can't believe you really did that", Richie said glancing sadly at the plastic stick Eddie was holding. Now the door was wide open and Eddie could hear the tune clearly. He finally managed to identify the voices on the radio: it was The Chordettes.  
Eddie smirked. "It was very good. It's a shame I finished it and you'll never know what flavor was that."  
Richie's eyes widened with surprise and amusement.  
"Maybe another day, you know… after two or three other lawns", Eddie continued.  
They looked at each other for a moment and burst out laughing. It was a very lovely moment and for a second Eddie forgot about his mom, the aspirator, the possibility of the bullyboys popping out of nowhere and pantsing them, leaving them hanging from the door of the shop…  
He was so lost in those visions of tragedy, that he almost didn't get what happened next. All of a sudden, Richie did something he could not quite catch, but only because he had never experienced that from his own perspective. He leaned towards him and pressed his lips against Eddie's.  
Eddie had watched a good number of love stories with his mother on their television – better, he had watched them alone till the end since she usually fell asleep during the first ten minutes. He would have never ever admitted that, but he enjoyed romantic movies and especially the resolution after all the obstacles the couple had to face. His most favorite was Casablanca. It was more a tragedy than a love story, but Eddie liked to think that Rick and Ilsa went back together after the War, when Ilsa would have realised he didn't love his husband. And their kiss in Casablanca… it was something, but a something that Eddie had not fully understood, until that day.  
At first, he just stood there, paralysed, his heart now racing at breakneck speed, his hands suddenly sweaty. It lasted no more than one second and a half, but Eddie thought of a lot of things in that short everlasting moment. But the only thing he managed to say out loud as soon as their lips parted was: _Huh._  
Richie held his breath for a moment and gave him a bright smile. Eddie noticed that his cheeks had turned redder than his lips and at the same instant he realised with a sense of both terror and exaltation that he could taste the Atomic Fireballs, although he had not eaten one of them.  
"Strawberry", the word came out from Richie's mouth in a slightly high-pitched tone.  
"What?", Eddie asked politely. What was the matter anyway? It was just a dream.  
"The lollipop. It was strawberry flavored, wasn’t it?"  
Eddie, who had completely forgotten about the lollipop, lowed his gaze and saw the plastic stick on the grass. He had no memory of letting it fall to the ground. He raised his eyes to Richie again, who was now gathering his stuff – books, yo-yo, and glasses, precariously on the tip of his nose. Eddie looked around, worried. He felt sort of light-headed but also very bad, as if he had been caught doing something he should be ashamed of. But Costello Avenue was deserted. Not even the storekeeper was in sight. The Chordettes were still singing.  
"I really regret not having a lollipop for myself", Richie said, as if the conversation had never stopped. "But it's too late, I guess."  
"Well, I owe you one", a voice that was not really Eddie's voice came out of his mouth.  
Richie turned his head so quickly that his glasses slipped down again.  
"When I've got some money, I mean", Eddie added quickly and blushed again.  
"I sure hope you do. Muchas gracias senhorr, now I've got to go."  
"You going?"  
"Yeah. Don't you worry, we'll vemos muy soon", Richie winked. "But now my Lawn Boy duties are calling me and I made a vow I cannot break."  
Eddie rolled his eyes theatrically. "Of course."  
Richie laughed out loud and pinched his cheek. "How cute! Bye-bye!", and before Eddie could think of an answer, he had already hopped away and vanished around the corner of the street.  
Eddie blinked a couple of times, then, like in a dream (he really believed it was a dream, and so he would have for the following months), he picked up the plastic stick and went home.  
  
Some people saw him on his way home and greeted him (Mrs Van Prett, for instance, their neighbor) but neither they nor even Eddie would have realised his feet were not touching the ground, his aspirator now abandoned in the pocket of the jacket his mom had recommended him to wear.

  
  



	2. July 15th, 1958

  
  
The second time happened during a lazy, mildly sunny, ordinarily boring summer afternoon. One of those afternoons that don't make history, the ones that the bards don't sing and the legends don't tell, the ones you cannot find in the books on your shelf. Who would write about those sultry, hazy, full of empty hours afternoons, anyway?  
Yet, as incredible as it sounds, the Losers’ Club had to face that kind of afternoons during the summer of 1958. And you can bet your sweet bippy, that was one of the hardest challenges they went through.  
For some of them for sure.  
  
Richie had been walking in circles for a whole half an hour, blabbering in his Voices and singing on repeat the same two lines from some Fats Domino song. He was passionately trying to reach his deep baritone voice and ended up singing out of tune instead, but no one really seemed to care.  
"‘You made me cry when you said good-bye, ain't that a sha-ha-ame'"  
"Beep–beep", Stan said, but there was no real effort in that call. They were all (Stanley Uris, Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak and Ben Hanscom) sitting on the grass, doing nothing more than enjoying the presence of each other. No one was thinking about anything in particular, and most importantly no one was thinking about any devilish creature. That day they felt like kids.  
  
"Why didn't you bring your radio, Richie?" Beverly asked. She was playing with an empty bottle of Coke, throwing it from hand to hand. Eddie glanced anxiously at it. He was well aware of the dangers of glass, although he had had a tetanus shot not long before. He also glanced at Richie from time to time but tried to look cool. In fact, he didn't know why he shouldn't have been.  
"Lawks-a-mussy, Miss Scawlett", Richie shook his head and sat down between Ben and Eddie. "I'd lak thass, but de Injuns tuk thassyere reh-dio frum mah v'ry black hends."  
Hearing that Beverly cracked up, Ben grinned, Eddie smiled and loosened up the grasp on the aspirator and even Stan raised an eyebrow with a shadow of laughter in his eyes.  
Silence fell over. Now only the birds were talking.  
Suddenly, Beverly put down the Coca-Cola bottle right in the middle of the circle.  
"You know spin the bottle?"  
Ben blushed furiously and began to rip up blades of grass from the ground.  
"What's spin the bottle, Bevvie?", Richie asked, curious.  
"Oh, just a stupid game I learned at school", Beverly giggled. "Now I'll show you."  
"If that's what I think it is", Stan broke in. "I'm out"  
"C'mon, foine lad", said Richie in his Irish Cop Voice. "Jaysus wouldn't approve such mannars, ye know-"  
"What's this game about?", Eddie asked. His breath was already starting to whistle.  
"Basically you twist the bottle", Ben was talking now, but his eyes were fixed on the ground. He cleared his throat before going on. "And when the bottle stops, you have to kiss the person the bottle is pointing to."  
Silence fell over again, but that was a different kind of silence. Ben's ears had turned red like fire and Eddie expected to see smoke jetting from them. Stan looked more disappointed with the way things had turned out than bothered in any way. Eddie also didn't feel very good, but he guessed it was just the air. Those frockin Barrens.  
Richie looked the same as always.  
And all of a sudden, in perfect slow-mo style, Beverly grabbed the bottle and spun it. The other four parts of that odd circle held their breath. The bottle, now the most important thing in the universe, spun five times, slowed down and landed on Richie.  
Eddie could distinctively hear the sigh from Ben, but that was no wonder. What scared him the most was his own sigh from his own lungs, in synch with Ben.  
Richie's eyes widened even more behind the lenses of his glasses.  
"Holy Jaysus, the foinest girrul of Ireland? Sure an begorrah the luck of ole Richie never runs out!"  
Beverly grinned and leaned toward him before he could say another word. It was nothing more than a quick peck, but Eddie followed the scene with a little too much apprehension. Richie's cheeks were very pink when they split off. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and uttered a little bit too loud, "My turn, now! My turn to spin!"  
Stan snorted. "Are we done?", he looked around. "Where's Bill, anyway?"  
"He had to help his parents sorting the attic", Eddie said flatly. "I don't think he'll come, at this point."  
He looked at Ben. It seemed he had fallen into a catatonic silence.  
"Too bad", Beverly replied.  
"Yeah, too bad", Stan said.  
But before the conversation could fall into the darkness of that summer, Richie spun the bottle.  
Eddie's heart skipped three beats, as many as the times the bottle spun. It turned, and turned… and pointed to Stan.  
The two of them looked at each other for a very long moment in which Beverly, Ben and Eddie (especially) feared the worst. Then Richie burst out laughing.  
"HAHA! THE JEWISH BOYO DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!"  
Stan stood up with a frown, but it was clear he was trying not to laugh. "Yeah, I'm definitely out of here. Call me when Tozier pulls his head out of his ass". Then he went through the clearing and disappeared into the bushes – he'll probably have a pee, thought Eddie, but did not say that out loud.  
He was still feeling quite upset but he was glad to see that at least Ben had put himself together, since Beverly was laughing to tears with her face pressed against his forearm.  
Richie had a very meaningful grin drawn on his face. He clapped once to draw the attention to him.  
Eddie had been spending the last ten minutes whistling some scumbag tune (the way his mother called rock n roll music in general), glancing at the sky, playing with his aspirator and trying to look cool in spite of the distress, all at the same time; so that he didn't fully realise the situation until Richie said, "Alright! Sadly for him, Stanny's gone and the rules say we must play-", he stopped for a moment to think. "…counter-clockwise! So I'll have to kiss Eddie."  
"Wha-?!"  
And before he could complete the word, Richie turned to him and kissed him on the lips. It also was no more than a peck, but Eddie got so paralysed within the moment that he could catch every detail: the mole close to his mouth, the bleached-out adhesive tape on the bows of his new-old glasses, his eyelashes through the thick lenses. He also heard Ben and Beverly gasping, somewhere in the Outer Space. Then it was over.  
They looked at each other. Eddie felt his mouth very dry and his ears very hot, afflicted by the worst case of fever of his life. Now that it had happened _again_, the stupid thought he had had about the first time being a dream, disappeared in a loud pop. But now it was different because they were not alone. That particular worry woke him up and he realised Richie and him have been staring at each other speechlessly for five full seconds.  
He turned to Beverly and Ben, also slack-jawed, the mirror of each other in their amazement. He turned again, blushing furiously.  
"Wh- why did you do that, Richie?!", Eddie's voice cracked on his name.  
Richie let out a nervous giggle. "What kind of question is that? Because these are the rules! Right, Beverly? Ben?"  
"Well-"  
"-And I happen to be a very honest person."  
"You... you what?! Don't try to pinch me!", he roared when Richie leaned toward him.  
"It was just a game, Eddie", Beverly said candidly.  
"Right, just a game", Eddie repeated and looked Richie right in the eyes. The change of his expression –from playful to dismayed, was so sudden and so quick that Eddie was sure he'd been the only one to notice.  
He was wrong.  
"I hope I didn't miss anything important", Stanley's voice made them jump.  
"Gosh, Stan", Ben said. "Next time would you be so kind to announce yourself?"  
"I met Bill in Kossuth Lane", he ignored Ben's request. "He's coming, he said-"  
But Eddie did not follow his speech. His eyes were on Richie, oddly quiet and absorbed in his own thoughts. He looked back at Eddie and suddenly Eddie realised their faces must be looking exactly the same, the mirror of each other in their bliss.

  
  



	3. October 4th, 1958

  
  
A lot had happened before the third (and, they thought, last) time. The cruel summer of 1958 was finally over and it looked like Derry was back to being the peaceful suburban town of southern Maine it was known as. However, not all citizens agreed with that.  
For instance, seven not so ordinary kids had spent the last weeks since mid-August waking up from nightmares starring dark corridors with moldy walls, flying leeches sucking their eyeballs out, gigantic birds and a strange little door…  
_(who is that trip-trapping upon my bridge?)_  
The attraction Derry had held on them was losing its grip day after day, as soon as they began to forget. It was a relief, but it was also kind of sad, a premonition of the people they would've become, far away from the city and from the ones they used to call friends. They still were, of course, but it was somehow different. They saw each other in the middle school hallways and said hi with an adult smile on their kid faces, as if they were bearers of a secret unknown to everyone else. And it was true.  
But the circle had broken and many years would have passed before it would’ve been (almost) complete again.   
  
But that Saturday no one of them was even close to those gloomy implications, least of all Richie, who was instead begging money from his old man. The Aladdin had a very cool movie scheduled for the afternoon and he wanted to watch it at any cost. Even if the cost was a quarter buck and he didn't own a single penny.   
"Puh-leeeeze, dad! Puh-leeze! Just fifteen pence!", he was crying with folded hands. He had allowed himself to do the Voices because he could see on his father’s face that he was amused and thought that he would have eventually surrendered. This was just the pre-show and Wentworth Tozier was having fun just as much as his son.  
"It seems to me that we already had this conversation, didn't we?", Wentworth asked at the end of the sketch. The three of them were having lunch. Richie knew mealtime was the perfect moment to ask his parents for a loan.  
He opened his mouth to answer, but he intercepted his mother's gaze. It was clearly saying _You better not talk with your mouth full_, so he stayed quiet and nodded.  
"Like… last week. And the week before that. So, I pray thee, could you please tell me where the heck did you spend the allowance I gave you on Monday?"  
Maggie Tozier clinked the fork on the plate. It was her well-known objection to her husband cursing, who looked at her with loving, apologetic eyes, his way to make amends. That was something Richie had learned from his father.  
"Hmmmmm", Richie swallowed the slice of roast beef and finally talked. "I would not know… perhaps on some humanitarian tasks. Or to help some old lady who had forgotten her wallet at home…"  
Wentworth raised an eyebrow.  
"…or maybe to buy the special number of Tex."  
"Now we're talking", his father said and went back to his lunch without any other word.  
"Dad!", Richie cried, but his father shook his head peremptorily.  
"Mom!", he tried again. Now he wasn't so sure they would have given up. But it was _The Blob_! "What kind of parents would deny a cultural hour to their son? We still live in a democracy yes or no, fellows?"  
Maggie Tozier looked up and apparently read his mind, since she immediately asked: "What movie is that, Richard? One of those horrific stories you love so much?"  
Richie realised he had been caught in a trap and played his last card.  
"I'll mow the lawn. Front and back! Yes, you've heard me well folks, front and back, come and see Richie Tozier mowing the biggest lawn on the block without even complaining, only today in Derry-"  
But his father had predicted that. He burst out laughing and when he was done, he said: "It has not rained in a month, Richard, I doubt you will find someone with the urgent need to see their lawn cut. I think the Aladdin will make ends meet without your contribution."  
Richie shut his mouth so quickly he almost bit his tongue. Hit and sunk.  
  
He didn't make a big deal out of it, but he felt demoralised. He had been waiting for that film for months (since the time he, Haystack and that girl Beverly went to the theater together) and he had taken for granted his attendance. Past Richie would have been bitter about his parents' decision, but the new Richie – the one who had nearly died in a smoke-hole, had gotten his priorities settled.  
So he went out for a walk. His parents glanced at him in disbelief when he left the house with no money and without making a sound, but said nothing. For the second time in the last months, Maggie got scared by his own son, but now in a more conscious way. They didn't fully realise it, but they were seeing a glimpse of the adult that, sooner or later, even Richie Tozier would have become.  
The air outside was incredibly dry for being October and Richie found himself sweating after a couple of miles. He took off his leather jacket he had bought after many lawns (that summer he had really earned the title of Lawn Boy) and stumbled his way to Center Street, headed to the Aladdin Theater.  
He had hoped to find someone to hang out there, but in half an hour he only saw dull faces and got more depressed because he knew he wouldn't have got to see _The Blob_. Yes, he could have gone to his friends' and asked them if they had plans for the afternoon, but he knew it was not like before, even if he could not explain how it was different. So he just stood there, feeling suddenly very stupid.  
He was just about to give up and go skimming stones at the Canal when a familiar face turned the corner of Macklin Street. Richie saw him before he could see Richie and rapidly put on his jacket again. Then he leaned against the doorframe and waited with his best gangster face on, only without a toothpick in his mouth. Richie regretted not having thought about that.  
"Halt! What ye think ye're doin here, buckaroo? The Kaspbrak boyo got guts wanderin around on days like thees, ayuh!"  
Eddie flinched with fright and blinked a couple of times before he could identify him. Did I get so good? Richie asked himself ecstatically.  
"That Voice still sucks", Eddie smirked after a moment of silence, and Richie started to laugh with a tiny bit of disappointment in his heart.  
"I don't know what ye're gobbledygookin about, my foine friend, I'm Mr Nell!"  
"Beep-beep, Richie", Eddie said and looked around with concern. Richie saw some of his classmates entering the theater and said hello, but Eddie was still looking uncomfortable. If Richie didn't know him (and he thought he knew him quite well) he would have said he was feeling embarrassed for having Richie Tozier nearby, goofing around with his leather jacket. That vicious suspect hit him in the stomach, but he pushed it away. He was quite good at that.  
"What were you doing here?", Eddie asked him and Richie had to pull himself out of his thoughts before answering. He pointed at the poster on the wall of the Aladdin. "I wanted to see _The Blob_, but I'm out of cash and apparently my parents don't give a shit about their only son's education."  
"Oh", Eddie said in a curious voice. Richie wouldn't have sworn on it, but he sounded kind of hopeful. "Actually, my aunts gave me some money when we went to see them. How much is a ticket?"  
"Fifteen pennies", Richie replied. He still had no clue what was going on.  
"Well, I've got a buck and a half. It's enough for two tickets and some candy. Only if you like, though", he added precipitously and looked away.  
Richie was gaping at him. He had not seen it coming and like always when he was caught unprepared, he put on the joker mask. He fell on his knees and started salaaming at Eddie's feet, the first way to express gratitude that came to his mind. Eddie protested loudly and tried to pull him up again.  
"Stop it! Is it a yes or a no?"  
Richie pretended to wipe a tear on the corner of his eye (although that pantomime was not so far from reality) and nodded. "Yes, yes! A big yowza for Eds! I mean…", he stopped as soon as he saw Eddie's expression. "Thank you, Eddie. Are you sure?"  
Eddie glanced at him from below. He was a small boy with delicate features, and looking at him (especially when next to Richie) it was easy to think he could've blown away at any moment. Richie knew very well that that wasn't true.  
"I told you I owed you one, right?"  
Richie couldn't help but smile.  
  
The show began in four minutes, so they burst into the marquee, ignoring the poster yelling NO RUNNING IN THE HALLWAY. Mrs Cole, the ticket-taker, followed their entrance with one of her painted eyebrows raised.  
"How old are you, kids? Don't you know how to read?", she asked them as soon as they reached the box-office.  
"Of course we do, ma'am", Richie replied. "But I'm afraid I suffer from some serious sight deficiency and my friend, here- "  
"Two tickets, please", Eddie scowled at him. Richie turned silent and answered back with those remorseful looks he had learned from his father. Eddie rolled his eyes.  
It was only when they sat down in the darkened auditorium with a bag full of sweets between them that Richie started to realise the overtones of the situation. He threw an Atomic Fireball up in the air and caught it with his mouth.  
"Jeez Richie, what have you done to your hair?", Eddie asked out loud to overcome the voice of the advertisement.   
Richie grinned. He was glad someone had noticed that. Lately he had been trying to imitate his favorite singers' styles: first the jacket like Gene Vincent, then the hair like Buddy Holly, who as a fellow four-eyes held a special place in Richie's heart. So he'd stolen his mother's hair spray and he had tried to recreate the Pompadour Style. He had heard that name on television and suddenly, the inspiration! He would have become Elvis Presley!  
"You like it? ‘Everybody in the whole cell block was dancin' to the jailhouse rock, rrock rock-' "  
Someone from the back shushed them. The movie was starting.  
"I've seen better", Eddie whispered in response. Eddie had always had a flattop so perhaps he didn't understand the attraction of such hairstyles, Richie thought during the titles.  
The show began. The first five minutes were not a problem. Actually, the movie opened with a passionate kiss between the two main characters, which wasn't an odd way to open a movie, but both Richie and Eddie could feel the other tensing up. Then the two guys saw a shooting star, but it turned up that wasn't a star but a meteor containing the Blob, which after all was just a big sentient Jell-O with great appetite.   
Richie was starting to relax when the Blob attached itself to the old man's hand who had found its egg. Soon it was clear to everybody inside and outside the movie that the slimy gelatin was growing on the man and eventually it would have covered the totality of his body. Richie had to keep himself from shivering whenever the Blob was in frame. He didn't know why the hell he was so scared… well, he did know, but he didn't want to think about that. Maybe he was overreacting. And he was feeling guilty because the tickets were on Eddie and he wasn't enjoying the movie. At all.  
Richie moved his hand to get another candy and his fingers touched Eddie's. They quickly turned to each other and found the same fear mirrored in the eyes of the other. It was in that second that Richie reached a great truth: there are wounds (or scars) that hurt only when together. But that was something he would have fully understood and accepted only many years later.  
At that precise moment, on an autumn afternoon of 1958, Richie leaned towards Eddie and asked him: "What's wrong?"  
"It's just…", Eddie shook his head and nodded to the screen.  
"I know", he cut it short.  
Now the Blob had eaten the old man and was about to absorb the nurse's body as well. Somewhere in the dark Richie could hear Eddie wheezing and using his aspirator.  
"Listen, let's get out of here", Richie said.  
Under the cold neon lights, Eddie looked paler than ever. He sighed and nodded yes.  
"I'm sorry for your money, though."  
"It doesn't matter. But… if you want to stay…"  
Now they were muttering to each other over the candy bag, not following the show anymore.  
"I don't. This movie is trash."  
"I think there's a cartoon about Paul Bunyan later on-"  
Richie couldn't hold back a hysterical laugh. "You must be shitting me!"  
Someone shushed them again.  
"Yeah yeah, we're out of here! Enjoy your crappy movie!"  
"_Richie!_ ", Eddie exclaimed, but he was laughing.  
They slipped away giggling like lunatics among the increasing booing of kids who had spent a normal summer at their vacation home, or at their grandma's in Maryland, but clearly not in Derry, facing evil.  
They were halfway down the stairs when they bumped into Foxy, the manager of the Aladdin. He wasn't a big man, but there was something in his look that crept out every child of the city.  
"What are you trying to do?", he hissed at them with his hands on the hips. In the darkness of the theater, he looked like a strange Injun totem.  
Richie knew it was time to wear his best poker face.  
"Sir, we need a little bit of air. My friend here is very sick and-"  
"Oh, screw that!", Eddie grabbed Richie's sleeve and ran past Foxy, and before everyone could've realised what had happened, Richie and Eddie were outside, under the hazy October sun. They had used the rear door, so now they were in a dark alley on the back of the theater, still laughing and trying to breathe properly. Richie's glorious hair was now all flattened against his glasses, but he didn't notice.  
"SCREW THAT! I think Eddie Got Off The Best One In History! Yowza-Yowza-YOW-"  
But Eddie wasn't laughing anymore. In fact, he was on the verge of tears.  
Richie moved next to him, worried and very awkward at the same time.  
"Eds… it's okay, Foxy didn't follow us", he said quietly and put his hand on his right arm.  
Eddie raised his wet eyes on him. His expression was very miserable and resolute and angry, all at once.  
"Foxy? I don't give a damn about him. It's just…", he sniffed. "I am not sick, okay?"  
Richie didn't understand, so he didn't say anything.  
"I don't need my aspirator. I mean, I do. But I don't really need it", Eddie gazed at that little plastic tool in his hand with strange, almost captivated eyes. Then he shook his head and put it back in his pocket. "It doesn't matter, anyway. My mom will ground me till Christmas when she finds out about today."  
"How do you know she'll find out?", Richie asked, still a little confused.  
Eddie shrugged and sniffed again. "She always gets to know things about me, before me."  
"Oh", was all that Richie could say.  
Silence again. Now the only sounds they could hear were the muffled screams of the people inside and their breaths. Richie felt the urgency to say something, but there were too many questions bouncing into his head. Eddie rescued him.  
"That movie…"  
"I know."  
"It reminded me of… you know."  
"The Eye", Richie said, and that name alone made him want to puke.  
Eddie moved closer to him. If he weren't a good four inches shorter than Richie they would've been shoulder-to-shoulder, but actually they were just shoulder-to-arm, Richie thought frantically.  
That idea made him smile, and before he could've realised he was laughing out loud.  
"What's so funny?", Eddie asked, genuinely puzzled.  
But Richie was in the middle of the worst case of delirious chucks for a long time and he couldn't stop. Tears started rolling down his cheeks. "The - _ohmygod _ \- The Jell-O! The Jell-O, Eddie!", he howled.  
"What?!"  
"The Blob! It was just a giant mass of fruit jelly! Am I wight, wabbit?", now Richie was doubled over.  
For a moment Eddie stared at him straight-faced and then he cracked up.  
The wave of hysteria went on for two or three minutes at least, until they found themselves with their backs against the brick wall, out of breath but also light-hearted.  
"Thank you, Richie", Eddie said, and then he did something that Richie would have never expected.  
It was true, he had started it. But until that moment he'd been convinced that it was no more than a joke, like the pinches on the cheeks, the pet name and the fact that every day he looked forward to coming across Eddie during lunch break, even now that they were in middle school. All these things were no more than a joke just like the times Richie had started it, because deep inside he believed that this was the only way it could have ever been.  
But in some mysterious way that Richie could not quite catch, Eddie managed to break the illusion. He stood on his tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth, in that squalid alley behind the Aladdin Theater.  
Richie's brain, well-known for being in constant overdrive, short-circuited all of a sudden. Now that the illusion had been crashed, he could perceive everything with shocking intensity and at the same time he felt absolutely nothing except for Eddie's fingers around his wrists and Eddie's lips pressed against his own lips.  
Then Richie opened his eyes and saw that the world was still there. And Eddie as well, who was now beaming at him with his hands behind his back.  
Richie smiled back, his cheeks and ears burning up.  
He cleaned his glasses with the corner of his shirt, then he cleared his throat and spoke again.  
"Next time without glasses, huh?"  
"Next time?", Eddie smirked. "I said I owed you one, not more."  
  
They walked back home, not talking much. They somehow knew this was the end of something.  
"I thought we'd have forgotten", Richie said out of nowhere. He was still thinking about the Eye.  
"I think we already are", Eddie answered back. "Don't you feel it?"  
"I do", Richie said, and he was looking at Eddie.  
"Do you think we will forget all of this?"  
The right question stood unspoken and floated in the air.  
Richie shook his head. "I don't know", he said, but he thought he knew well enough.  
Now they were at the intersection of Witcham and Jackson, facing each other.  
"Well, I gotta go", Eddie said.  
"Me too. Bye Eds, see you around!"  
Eddie turned toward him in the middle of the street and started walking backward. "You know I hate it when you call me like this."  
Richie faked a thoughtful expression. "Yes, you must have told me, once or twice."  
"Stop it, then!", Eddie said, now from the other side of the road.  
"Life ain't always that fair, boy!"  
  
It really wasn't. They didn't know it, but that Saturday afternoon was the last the two of them would have spent together. They would've seen each other in the school hallways again and nodded hello like they did with Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom, but their paths would have crossed again only twenty-seven years later, on a warm night of May.  
They didn't know it but they could feel it, and for that reason Richie and Eddie turned back that day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other before the circle closed once and for a long time.

  
  



	4. May 31st, 1985

  
  
The fourth (and, they hoped, not last) time happened, as predicted, on a warm night of May, twenty-seven years later. Full dark, no stars, but a crescent moon hanging in the middle of the great black tapestry when their paths crossed again in the only possible way.  
They had been called back. Back to the howling old owl in the woods, thought someone, out of the blue and into the black, thought someone else. Someone did not think of anything except for an oath they couldn't fulfill. But in the end they were there: not all of them, definitely older and weaker and marked by life, but there. In Derry, the homeland of unspeakable nightmares. Derry, an open sewer under a merciless sky. Derry, the realm of their childhood.  
They found it in the eyes and in the words of the others, and at the end of that day six eleven-years-old kids walked out of the Public Library towards their fate.  
Together again.  
  
Richie, Eddie and Ben were standing on the door of the library with Mike and watched Bill and Beverly as they walked down the street, chatting with bright eyes, their hands touching casually from time to time. Eddie threw an oblique glance to Ben, but he wasn't looking at the two of them. He had his hands in his pocket and he was humming a tune, and Eddie wondered if he'd lost his mind as well as all those pounds. He didn't consider himself an expert in human nature but he knew for sure that Richie was, so it was no surprise when he patted Ben on the back and uttered cheerily: "Isn't it past your nest time, Haystack? Let's go, let's go!"  
Ben turned his head and for a moment Eddie saw the fat and resolute boy that used to hang out with them three decades before. But then Ben smiled and broke the spell: he was a handsome man with long hair and cowboy boots, and above all he was thin. Eddie asked himself if they were seeing him the same way he'd been seeing the other five for all day long: a short sickly boy with a muskrat face, living his best childhood, or better, trying to survive his childhood. He smiled sadly as he felt the pressure of the aspirator in the pocket of his trousers. Some things never change.  
"No, Richie. I'm staying here to get some air with ole Mike. You go ahead, I'll follow in a minute."  
It took more than two seconds to Eddie to realise Ben was referring to him and Richie. He turned back to Mike and Ben, standing at the top of the stairs, and felt a big wave of affection. How weird to think that three days before he didn't even remember their names. But did he love them? With all his heart.  
Eddie turned to Richie and for a second he saw it again, a glimpse of the kid he had used to be.  
He was a man, now, for how much strange and unexpected it was. As kids, the seven of them Losers were somehow convinced they would have never grown up; but deep inside they knew it would have happened, sooner or later. But Richie Tozier? That was impossible. He would have been a Lost Boy forever. Sounded about right. Richie was the one that had kept them tied to childhood, with his terrible Voices and his odd way to walk and to push his glasses up to his nose, the same way Bill had kept them together with his charisma, or the way Mike had closed the circle with his arrival at the dump, that afternoon of 1958. They all had a role. And whatever that was…  
"You coming, Eddie?", asked Richie, next to him. Eddie reemerged from his thoughts and nodded.  
He needed some sleep. It didn't matter the role they had played in the past: at the end of that night they would have finally faced the thing in the dark.  
  
Richie had a very quick brain, quicker than anyone else he had ever known. Some of his acquaintances in LA, deejays or actors with many good words on their shoulders but no talent at all, had tried cocaine to keep up with that world. Not that he hadn't tried it himself, but he had soon realised he wasn't made for that kind of stuff. His mind was fast enough to zigzag across that delirious comings and goings of people and voices without drowning.  
But that was too much even for him. It was late at night and he was going through his hometown in Maine because a very old friend had called him and said _Look, do you remember that vow we made when we were eleven? It's time to fulfill it. Bye. _  
And he had said yes! Because why not. And now, dear God, now he was wearing glasses and he was walking next to Eddie Kaspbrak. Time had bent around.  
"Do you think we are going crazy?", Richie asked suddenly.  
Eddie blinked twice but stayed silent. He was still shorter than him and those delicate features hadn't abandoned him, but now he wore spectacles as well and his face was marked by a few wrinkles. And he still has a terrible taste in hairstyles, thought Richie, and that idea made him smile even though he couldn't exactly get why.  
"Probably yes. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here."  
There was no need to mention Stan. Stan was always between them, a silent reminder that everything they had been through was real and had bitten them hard. Some harder than others. Richie dismissed the thought before he could seriously start to think about it. Stan was the reason why he was there and he was going to do anything in his power to end that story. Period.  
Now they were descending Up-Mile Hill, which was deserted. It looked like the city had fallen under some kind of curse: the members of the Losers' Club of 1958 were the only human beings alive in Derry. Them, and the dark down below.  
The two men moved closer without even realising it. Their hands touched for a second, and in that second something happened.  
And Richie said: "A penny for your worries, senhorr."  
Eddie smirked and shook his head. "One hundred bucks wouldn't be enough, Pancho."  
Richie's eyes widened all at once. "You remember it!"  
"Of course I remember your stupid Voices", Eddie laughed and for a moment it looked like he was about to say something else, but didn't.  
The change had been so sudden that neither of them had grasped it, but a strange optical trick was going on: now it was hard to tell apart the reality of the grownups from the memory of the kids they had been. And they kept moving, in and out of the illusion of childhood, in and out of the shadows.  
"And what about Bill and Beverly?", Richie asked on the corner of Upper Main Street.  
Eddie stopped on the spot. "What about them?"  
"Do you think they're…"  
"In love?"  
"That's not exactly what I was going to say, but if you want."  
"Richie…"  
"Well, I just think they're having a good time in there. Don't know if there's something else going on."  
Eddie shrugged. "I don't think so. You saw the way Ben looked at her. And besides…"  
"It was a long time ago", Richie concluded.  
Eddie looked at him right in the eyes. "Does it matter?"  
Richie glanced back at him and felt something. It wasn't exactly an emotion, but more of a memory coming back to him. Only, this memory was mirroring the present: now two different yet matching pictures were coexisting in the same place in space and time. It was enough to make everyone's mind boggle, so Richie was surprised when he heard his grown-up voice saying: "No, it doesn't."  
Eddie nodded and looked the other way, his face right under the warm light beam of the streetlamp.  
They stayed quiet for a while. They were still standing on the corner of the street; it was clear they didn't want to go. Richie seized the moment to light a cigarette and Eddie snorted loudly.  
"Now tell me you didn't expect this", Richie smiled smugly and blew the smoke.  
"Not at all."  
"C'mon Eds, for all I know this could be my last cigarette. You can't blame me."  
"I'm not", Eddie considered bringing out the pet name issue, but in the end he desisted. "I was just thinking of all the things that change and of the ones that stay the same. Isn't it crazy?"  
"It's time, my dear. It's all fun and games until you find out you have to grow up and to pay taxes and to go to the bank and shit like that. You realise you're screwed, but it's already too late to ask for a refund. Pretty chuckalicious, if you ask me. So", he threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his shoe. "You stick to the things that make you feel like you're young again. You get me?"  
Eddie was not looking at him; his eyes were on the dark blue sky, his hands in his pockets. "I think so."  
"The Voices, the cigarettes… your aspirator", Richie went on, suddenly lit by the old flame. Eddie smiled apologetically, his gaze still skywards. "But perhaps to be young, truly young, it means that you're willing to do these things that are worth the risk."  
Richie could barely hear Eddie's voice saying: "Such as…?"  
"Such as…"  
They turned to each other in the same breath, and in one second the darkest night of all nights was lightened by the encounter of two intertwined souls, twenty-seven years later.  
For the first time, their lips met halfway. Eddie dropped his bag and threw his arms around Richie, who held him tight and kissed him. He kissed his mouth, the tip of his nose, his neck, and then stopped and whispered, still holding him close: "Wait… here?"  
Eddie laughed and Richie could feel his heart growing three sizes.  
"Right here, right now. Fuck this city", he said and kissed him again. It was an adult kiss but it had the sweetness and the desperation of two kids finding each other in the eye of the hurricane. Their glasses collided and they had to distance.  
"Here's the reason why I wear lenses", Richie grumbled, but he was smiling.  
Eddie frowned as if he was trying to recall something. _"Next time without glasses?"_  
At first, Richie shook his head questioningly, but realisation hit him soon. "Oh my- Did I really say that?", he chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit, that's embarrassing."  
"At least we know this isn't the first time we do this."  
Richie clicked his tongue. "How many more times? One for sure. I remember that fucking space jelly."  
Eddie nodded solemnly. "Two. Spin the bottle in the Barrens."  
They had moved closer again. Now they were holding hands.  
"Right. No more?"  
"Try again", Eddie said, and Richie leaned and kissed him on the lips for what was their last time. It was a kiss worthy of Casablanca and of all the love songs they had listened to in their lives, only under that streetlamp on an empty street in Derry, Maine.  
Richie opened his eyes and smiled. "It was strawberry, wasn't it?"  
  
Eddie did not want to go home. Myra had always criticized his impatience – an attitude that had more to do with anxiety than with mere restlessness, but now, for the first time in a very long time, Eddie did not want to go home. He wanted the time to stop right there and above all, he didn't want to take another step. Because another step would have led him to the edge of the cliff. And it was so unfair, he thought feverishly as they were walking to the Town House, that for once in his life he was feeling fine, he was feeling _right_, and yet tomorrow had never seemed so far away.  
He shivered and tightened the grip on Richie's hand.  
"Hey Eds", Richie broke the silence with a cheerful voice that didn't match his expression. "Do you think that Haystack made it to the hotel? Or was he kidnapped by the Injuns?"  
Eddie recoiled. "Shit! I forgot about Ben." Actually, he had forgotten about nearly everything and everyone in the world in the last thirty minutes, but he didn't say that.  
"I'm sure he's okay. He can always fight them with his bare fists."  
They finally had come in front of the Town House. They looked at their hands and slowly loosened the hold.  
"I think that now we're even", Eddie said with his cheek flushed.  
"Even-steven", Richie confirmed. "Unless…"  
"What."  
Richie kicked a small stone with his foot and said nonchalantly: "Well, I don't know you well enough to tell if you're the type that waits until marriage, so I'm just assuming that-"  
Eddie smirked. "Room 906, dingus."  
Richie faked a sigh of relief. "Oh, I'm glad you got it. Things were getting a little bit awkward here."  
"And I'm glad you're aware of that."  
Richie took a step forward to enter the hotel but Eddie stopped him. "Wait."  
Richie stood there, with the door half-open and several questions inside his eyes.  
Eddie gasped, not sure of what he was going to say. "Richie, I-"  
But then a very dangerous and wonderful thought crossed his mind. The thought of a tomorrow in which he could have spoken out loud, without fear, a day in which he would have finally been free.  
Eddie shook his head. Another place, another time. "Nothing. Let's go."  
  
And so, in that prosaic way that is typical of the great events in history, Richie and Eddie went out of the blue and into the black, towards a new day that had never been so unsure.  
But Eddie would have seen it, a glimpse of that future, in the eyes of his friend and lover. All the greatest love stories end in tragedy, don't they? , he thought in his last, dazzling moments. He was just very sorry he hadn't said it when he had the occasion. But now it was too late and it was quite useless to wish impossible things.  
After all, he was quite sure Richie knew. Yeah, he must have known well enough. That’s what Eddie thought as he died, the shadow of those kisses lingering on his lips, the future he would've never had unfolding in front of his eyes.  
Not bad... not bad at all.  
  
  



End file.
